As great as he is with a guitar, Richard Thompson once noted the hazards of performing with one. As he put it, “To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity.”
But the Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra has strength in numbers — as well as a sound all its own.
Since 2009, the local ensemble, a mix of nearly 20 electric and acoustic guitarists, has been exploring the sonic and tonal possibilities of all those strings in an eclectic range of music, from interpretations of Led Zeppelin and Wilco to arrangements of work by Bach, Beethoven, Erik Satie and Béla Bartók, among others.
Now, with more experience under their collective belts and time spent recording in a full studio, the HVGO players have produced a new CD — and they’ll debut the songs Friday at Smith College.
HVGO’s founder and director, Peter Blanchette, says he’s excited about the growth of the group, both in the musicianship of individual players and their ability to play as an ensemble.
“I feel like we’re inventing a whole new language of how to play together — we come in contact with this great music and we perform it on guitar,” said Blanchette, who arranges all the compositions. “I’m more experienced today at conducting, the group is more experienced, so we’ve been able to make this work.”
Blanchette, of Northampton, is no slouch at guitar himself. He’s performed and recorded his own arrangements of classical and Renaissance music for years on his 11-string archguitar, an instrument he designed to incorporate some features of a Renaissance-era lute.
He started the guitar orchestra as an extension of his interest in arranging music, and as a means of bringing guitarists together.
“It tends to be a solitary instrument, or it can be part of, say, a rock band or jazz combo,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of opportunities for guitarists to play together, and I thought there were people in the Valley who would be interested in doing that.”
The HVGO has a mix of professional and amateur players, including some who have logged time in rock bands and other groups, as well as those who play other instruments. Being able to read music is a plus but not a requirement for entry, Blanchette says. What is needed is an ability to learn the group’s music and a serious commitment to practicing at home and attending rehearsals.
Strictly speaking, it’s not an all-guitar group. Eighteen of the 20 members play either electric guitars or steel-string or nylon-string acoustic guitars. There’s also a bass player and a banjo player, and some songs include a drummer.
The group’s new CD, “The Unknown Album,” was recorded at Rotary Records in West Springfield over the past year — a much better situation, Blanchette says, than what was available for HVGO’s first album, recorded with rented equipment in 2010 in the ballroom of the Northampton Center for the Arts’ former home on Old South Street.
“We had no budget then,” Blanchette said with a laugh.
With grant money and donations this time, the group could book studio time. About half a dozen of the most-experienced players recorded several versions of the new pieces first, with Blanchette editing a single mix of this “guide track” from those takes; then the other players overdubbed their parts.
“It’s the common way pop music albums are made,” Blanchette said. “I love doing it this way: To me, recording is like making a film, live performances are like performing a play in the theater. … Live performance can be a chance to let the energy of the moment magically influence the music, even somehow involving the audience. Recording is a chance to build an idealized performance.”
Blanchette also plays on all but one of the tracks, which include pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Philip Glass, Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla and Wilco (the song “One Wing,” from the group’s eponymous 2009 album). Blanchette said he was particularly happy to get permission from Glass’ music director for his arrangements of the composer’s “Metamorphosis One,” a piece for solo piano, and another work, “Evening Song,” an orchestral score.
“I had to submit my scores for approval,” he said. “[Glass] tends to be pretty limited in allowing” other arrangements.
The result is a rich, layered sound in which plucked and strummed acoustic guitars lay a foundation for shimmery leads and arpeggios played on electric guitar. The effect can be almost hypnotic at times. On “Evening Song,” by Glass, a repeated, ascending phrase on electric guitar passes from the left to right stereo channels, like the moon and stars crossing the sky, while acoustic guitars sound chords underneath.
The parts played by banjo player Davor Tomasic of Amherst can take on a mandolin-like quality, most notably on the opening of “Pampa” by Santaolalla, who’s won two Academy Awards for his movie scores. And on HVGO’s version of the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, high notes on the electric guitar mimic the flutes and other woodwinds of the original music.
The CD also offers numerous bright passages on acoustic guitar, such as during the first parts of “Basse dance,” a Renaissance-era piece, and Blanchette’s arrangement of a Bach composition for organ. Both those songs begin quietly and then build on a fuller layer of sound with electric guitars and drums.
Smith College music professor Steve Waksman, a guitarist himself who serves on HVGO’s board of directors, says large guitar ensembles are not that common, and that they tend to be built more around electric guitars and to focus on specific genres of music, like jazz or classical. As he sees it, Blanchette’s skill at arranging for electric and acoustic guitars, and his wide-ranging musical palette, have given HVGO a unique sound.
Waksman, who contributes liner notes to the new CD, puts it this way: “Anytime you can take Beethoven and Wilco and make them sound like they’re part of the same musical universe, you’ve really accomplished something.”
Blanchette jokes that coordinating all those guitars, particularly when playing live, can sometimes be “chaos.” But the effort, he adds, is well worth it: “We prepare for [live performance] as best we can, not knowing exactly what’s going to happen, but it’s like a moment in time, an experience we all love.”
HVGO has been expanding its dimensions in other ways. It now has an assistant director, Joe Ricker of Northampton, an experienced guitar teacher and arranger himself who leads rehearsals if Blanchette is not available. Ricker has also headed HVGO’s collaboration with Holyoke Summer Strings, a free music camp for the city’s public school students. Ricker and other HVGO players provide guitar lessons as part of that program.
Blanchette sees that as both an important community service his group can provide and a means for building HVGO’s model.
“My dream is that we get so established and solid that we’re always working with other schools — and that some of those students will grow up to join us.”
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.
The Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra will debut its new CD in a concert Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Sweeney Concert Hall on the Smith College campus in Northampton. Tickets are available at www.nohoarts.org and at the door (cash or check only), starting at 6:30 p.m.
HVGO will also play May 21 at 8 p.m. at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls.
For more information about the orchestra, visit hvgo.org.